Tianyi thought that only a month had passed at most. Whenever he learned a new technique or cultivation in the Immortal Scripture Repository, it never took too long, but this time was different. Tianyi showed a shocked expression at Daoyi's words.
Ten years was a long time for regular mortals, but it wasn't worth mentioning for high-level cultivators. Many things stayed the same, but many things also changed.
I'm forty-four years old this year. Adding the years from my previous life, I'm almost seventy now. Wait, did I add the years present in the Demon Cage Realm? Ugh, spending different amounts of time in realms is confusing. Tianyi thought. After catching up with Daoyi, he returned to his room.
Like Daoyi, Xi Ri had also entered the peak Core Formation Realm in these years. In addition to his talent in space, Xi Ri took on another master, this time, it was an Immortal Realm elder, raising his status even more. Last Daoyi heard, Xi Ri was planning on entering the Nascent Soul Realm, but he was missing a chance, so he left the sect to temper himself.
Currently, the outskirts of the Heaven Continent weren't peaceful. Many unranked sects and clans had been exterminated due to the continuous wars. Sensing something amiss, the ruling forces such as the Buzhou Immortal Sect and first-rate sects sent out investigators to discover the reason behind the wars.
Although they couldn't discover anything concrete, they were traces of devilish cultivators influencing the current trend of the Heaven Continent. Currently, none of the third-rate sects had gotten involved, but the vassal forces under them had already started to undergo skirmishes. If this continued, the third-rate sects might start to wage war against each other and push the rising tension of the Heaven Continent even more.
Sensing the sinister intentions of the devilish cultivators, the Buzhou Immortal Sect ordered its vassal sects to quell and exterminate the devilish cultivators. The first-rate forces under the Buzhou Immortal Sect all sent out forces to snuff out the devilish cultivators but couldn't discover their headquarters, only traces.
They wanted to order the wars to stop, but how could conflict stop just because of their word? In addition, the first-rate sects also had conflicts among themselves. There were even rumors that it wasn't the devilish cultivators behind the wars but the Leakless Sect or Anti-Heaven Alliance.
The situation entered a stalemate. Helpless, the first-rate sects could only issue missions for their members to investigate the cause behind the wars. This naturally included the Buzhou Immortal Sect. Xi Ri had undertaken such a mission.
One thing that hadn't changed was Su Bojing's cultivation. What realm he had before Tianyi disappeared for tens and before Tianyi left for the Demon Slaying Expedition was what realm Su Bojing was currently at.
In contrast, Ba Shifang was another story. He had entered the Foundation Establishment Realm during the seventh year of Tianyi's ten-year disappearance. And now, he was at the peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Tianyi had inspected Ba Shifang's dantian and discovered the spiritual crucible, altar, and pillars. Compared to Tianyi's spiritual crucible, altar, and pillars, the only difference was that Ba Shifang's spiritual pillars had eight segments. Strictly speaking, Ba Shifang could start the Core Formation Heavenly Tribulation at any time, but some external resources still needed to be gathered.
To lay the foundation to form the four nascent souls at the Nascent Soul Realm, Tianyi needed Ba Shifang to form eight spiritual cores corresponding to the eight symbols: heaven, earth, water, fire, wind, thunder, mountain, and marsh. So Tianyi ordered Su Bojing to go to Pill Hall and ask the alchemist to concoct pills containing the eight essences.
Although the eight essences were rare, it wasn't like Tianyi wasn't able to afford them. He still had a mountain of demon corpses he could use to pay or trade for sect contribution points.
Once that business was done, Tianyi looked for his mother but couldn't find her. The reason was that Mengfei had entered secluded cultivation again, only this time it was at the Heaven, Earth, Man Trinity Palace outside of the Huang Realm.
Seeing that there was nothing else to do, Tianyi started to consolidate his gains. During the five years he was doing this, Tianyi had completed his technique that turned qi into a solid state. It wasn't that he particularly focused on it, but for him to advance to the next realm, compressing his qi was a natural step, so he completed it as a by-product.
On a side note, Tianyi named the solid state of qi as yu, as in the character for jade. He could have named it gu, which was the literal character for solid, but Tianyi liked yu more as it sounded more elegant.
During this time, whenever he got tired or lost inspiration, he upgraded the software—errr, formation for the Xiyi Talisman, forming the infancy of the internet.
Wait, can I even call it the internet? Tianyi wondered. He couldn't recall why the internet was called the internet, but since this was a cultivation world, and he wanted to hide his status as a reincarnator, Tianyi decided to give it another name.
Since Xi Ri wasn't present, Tianyi decided to discuss it with Daoyi. They went through many names such as Formation Network, Cultivation Network, Immortal Network, but they eventually settled on Xiyi Network to remind people that it originated from the Xiyi Talismans.
Speaking of Xiyi Talismans, Tianyi worked out a blueprint for the second version known as Xiyi Talisman 2.0. The only difference between the first and second versions was that the second version was modified to be able to connect to the Xiyi Network or Xiyinet for short. A more critical modification was security to prevent people from copying the formation in it.
It was a suggestion from Xi Ri before he left. Using the data gathered from the Demon Cage Realm and Xiyi Talisman DCR, Xi Ri realized that the information transmitted would be invaluable even if the cultivators didn't care for the network. So the formation firewalls, as Xi Ri called them, the formation firewalls weren't to prevent others from recreating the Xiyi Talisman but to safeguard the information and control of the Xiyi Talismans.
Right now, Tianyi only needed Xi Ri to come back and implement the new manufacturing method.
And when Tianyi was finally ready to enter the Singularity Realm, he silently flew to the location where he underwent his Core Formation and Nascent Soul Heavenly Tribulation. The only difference this time was that there was no audience. Well, except one.
"Daoyi, why are you here?" Tianyi asked. He had thought about informing his mother, but recalling that she was in secluded meditation, he didn't want to bother her.
"Tianyi, didn't you scold Xi Ri for undergoing his Core Formation Heavenly Tribulation without informing you? Now, you are going to undergo your Unity Heavenly Tribulation without informing anyone. Are you trying to be a hypocrite? Plus, with me here, I can call for help in case something happens." Daoyi scolded, causing Tianyi to cover the lower half of his face with his hand.
"...thanks," Tianyi said, his cheeks a bit flushed. It was unknown whether it was out of embarrassment or shame. Still, with Daoyi at the site, Tianyi felt a bit relieved. Truth be told, he was a bit nervous undergoing his heavenly tribulation without his mother's presence, but he would never admit that unless under the threat of death.
He was already almost fifty years old. He had pride and a sense of shame, thank you very much.
Tianyi sat down in a lotus position and closed his eyes. Inside his inner cosmos, aside from his nine spiritual cores, there were numerous black spheres within. The black spheres were yu formed from Tianyi's true qi of chaos. Furthermore, a web formed from se, the liquid true qi of chaos, spread throughout.
His inner cosmos had reached the peak and could also no longer expand. Knowing that there would be no more improvement, Tianyi began to regulate his inner cosmos according to the Singularity Verse of his Nine-Five Scripture.
Actually, after memorizing the method to enter to Singularity Realm, Tianyi wondered whether it could still be called the Nine-Five Scripture. Even if another person cultivated the seventh grade of the Nine-Five Scripture, the Nine Mandate Cores, Five Heaven Souls Grade, Tianyi doubted they would be able to enter the Singularity Realm. There were no concrete facts, just a hunch of Tianyi's. His clone had the same foundation, if slightly inferior, but there was just something missing.
Pushing the unneeded thoughts out of his mind, Tianyi started to cultivate to the Singularity Realm.
The nine spiritual cores' revolution in Tianyi's body began to slow down. After an unknown period of time, they completely halted and then started revolving in reverse.
Why do I feel something is wrong? Tianyi thought. He slowed down his speed and inspected the method. Strange, I'm cultivating according to the method, so why does something feel amiss?
Advancing even more carefully, Tianyi slowed down even more, unwilling to even let the slightest details escape. As more time passed, the edge of the inner cosmos began to shrink. Along with the shrinkage, the empty space not occupied by anything slowly disappeared.
The advancement was shockingly smooth with no hiccups, surprisingly even Tianyi. Once all the empty space disappeared and there was not one spot not occupied by Tianyi's true qi of chaos, he had successfully entered the Singularity Realm.
The lack of incidents shocked even Tianyi. Now Tianyi had to compress everything in his inner cosmos: his nine spiritual cores, his five nascent souls, Heavenly River Stellar Avatar, and his yu, se, and qi into one point. Once he could no longer compress anything, Tianyi would have reached the peak of the Singularity Realm, and all he needed to do would be to crack the primordial egg and create an embryonic universe.
Once he did that, Tianyi didn't know if he would be considered an immortal or not, but he would definitely have the power of one. Perhaps he might even surpass regular true immortals.
Tianyi cultivated a bit more, but progress was slow. Tianyi understood that it was because his understanding of the world, his concepts, was too shallow. If the concepts he knew evolved into laws of the world, then his speed would dramatically increase. However, even true immortals had trouble comprehending a worldly law, and only those who did could become immortal monarchs.
After a while, Tianyi opened his eyes. His inner cosmos had slightly shrunk, and his true qi of chaos had become slightly denser. Even if his understanding of concepts was shallow, all he needed was time, but Tianyi didn't know if thirty-six hundred years was enough time.
In fact, Tianyi had come to understand that his lifespan was no longer restricted to thirty-six hundred years and was tied to his inner cosmos instead, but he didn't know if that was a good or bad thing. It was possible his lifespan had increased by severalfold, but it was just as likely that his lifespan had decreased.
Sighing, Tianyi stood up and walked towards Daoyi. "How long did I take?"
Daoyi made a strange face at Tianyi's words. "Tianyi, you just sat there for over a month. Did you realize you weren't prepared enough, so you stopped?"
Now it was Tianyi's turn to make a strange face. "What are you talking about? I already entered the next realm, the Singularity Realm."
"Huh? But no heavenly tribulation came forth." Daoyi said, her face full of confusion.
It was at this moment that Tianyi had realized what was missing. Even though he started to ascend to the next realm, there was no heavenly tribulation. Did something go wrong?
Tianyi released his spiritual sense, but the moment he died, a catastrophic explosion erupted from his body. The explosion was formed from Tianyi's true qi of chaos and resembled his nuclear detonation technique. When the smoke and aftereffects subsided, Tianyi stood in the middle of a large crater with soot all over his face and clothes in tatters.
"What the hell?" Tianyi said aloud with a face full of disbelief.
He was broken out of his stupor by Daoyi's bell-like laughter. He looked at her to see her holding her belly and laughing uncontrollably. Just as her laughter settled down, she took another glance at Tianyi and fell into another fit of giggles.
Realizing the source of her laughter, Tianyi looked down to see his current sorry state. Feeling his cheeks flush in shame, not that anyone would be able to tell with the black soot over his face, Tianyi inserted his qi into his spatial ring.
But the moment he did so, another catastrophic explosion erupted from his body. This time, it was slightly less impressive in size but still equally destructive.
Tianyi's eyes were so wide now that it seemed that his eyeballs could pop out at any moment. He ignored the tatters of his robe that could barely cover his privates and looked at the sky. "Don't tell me I can't use qi or spiritual sense unless I want to explode?!"
The worse would come later when Tianyi realized that the little progress he had made in compressing his inner cosmos had been reset.